[The Carpet Cleaning Pro]

Never tried groupon but i find this thread interesting, the way i see it is that you are paying groupon to do your marketing, you sit at home and they get you 100-300 and you go out and do the jobs and try to upsell wherever you can.

You have spent no money on advertising/marketing

You have spent no time walking the streets

You have guaranteed work

Work out how much you could/would spend on advertising/marketing to get that money guaranteed and you have the answer to the question........is it worth doing groupon?

Wether it devalues carpet cleaning as an industry, i doubt it as so much of the population dont or ever get their carpets cleaned.

I dont doubt that it has worked for the people on here who have admitted to doing it and some people on here just protest far too much for them to be credible.

That said i still cant decide wether i would do it, but, if your going to thrive you have to be open to new ways of marketing.

Tony

You are correct but the key is to restrict the post codes. This gets you loads of callers who cannot use a voucher so what you do is give them an offer taylored for there post code. This creates lots of work in and around the same areas as the vouchered work. Email me and I will help you sort your campaign and let you in on the secret of success. mick@thecarpetcleaningpro.co.uk

[Tony Rowley]

True enough....but....if your struggling then £1,300 may be a great deal, given that its £1,300 minus costs and not marketing/adveritsing + £1,300 - costs, depends how you view it.

Tony

[Jamie Pearson]

Spoke to someone from one of the companies today.

Domestic carpet cleaning is a new venture for them. The 400 cleans they sold they have had a number of up takers paking additional charges for mileage, additional rooms.

They looked at it as a marketing exercise reckoning around 10% profit for the whole project would be good.

They reckon it's the most effective way of driving traffic to their site to date and it has gained them additional work in other sectors of their business.

I see one of the 4 offering in the Edinburgh area was selling Dry Fusion cleans.

[Steve. Taylor]

http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/people/join-the-team/join-the-team.shtml

[Paul W Jones]

The guy in Birmingham has now sold about 170.  So that's 170 multiplied by £14.50.  It would be really interesting to find out just how much the final figure is once all the jobs are complete and any extra works have been added up.

[Adam P]

another thought to add. everyone on here so certain they'll be able to get plenty of repeats out of this, but think about it from groupon's point of view, the people who tbh have much more power then you given the amount of work they can easily get. when the customer wants their carpets cleaned again it's in groupon's interest that the customer uses groupon over you, so groupon will more likely have a structure in place like focusing carpet cleaning adverts to the customer 6/8 months after there last clean, or something even better that can't be resisted. they already do this from the amount of work they can get i'm sure getting a previous customer back is going to be even easier for them.

the price difference between using your services which the customer knows works, and groupon's which the customer also know work it just too huge.

i think people have different rules from groupon depending on the area. we def had no room for movement as much as he tried to convince us i was firm on what we wanted minimum from each sale, and he went back and forth trying to get it so we can have a higher value on the coupons but he couldn't get past £29 (of which you get £14.50) for 2 hours work. we could not set the amount it was groupon telling us what we have to do at the least. at first i was told 50% is minimum discount but it ended up being more like 70% minimum plus then a further 50% of the reaming 30% goes to groupon. it's not like i could even say to them i charge £200 per hour and will give 75% of that off so charge £50 per hour, we had to go by their maximum hourly rate.

i have someone who could easily try this, but the fact that as standard without upselling, it'd cost me to clean someone elses dirt, and then i'd be funding a company that is trying to steal my customers and give them back to me for a massive reduced price just seems so silly.

trouble i see is people on here look and say £1300 is a fair amount of money, but it's for so so many jobs. groupon is shrinking our prices making it even more competitive in an unrealistic way. we should be fighting over a new method to get new well paying customers like google, but instead are focusing on paying to clean someone elses dirt.

[Adam P]

bennymon: if you give groupon a call i'd be interested to know what you get out the call. i spoke to craig and from what i understand deals with carpet cleaning in this area so you may get the same guy should you decide to trial groupon.

there was no chance in hell of getting £56 or anything close, it was £29 for 2 hours work, not 2/3 rooms but 2 hours work, and then groupon took half. if you get a to do a better deal i'll be shocked. the only way i could see this working is to literally do all 200 jobs and pay yourself nothing. of course if there is no work any way you're getting nothing, but you could end up wasting time cleaning someone elses carpets and you'll have nothing left in your pocket to show for it. you would earn more from macdonalds

also remember each job is not paid cash so there is potential further charges (although small) and no potential tax free jobs

[jasonl]

Even ifnyou do build a database of groupon customers which youmhave done for next to nothing, most people have their carpets cleaned ever 18 months - 2 years, so you've a long wait on your hands before having any chance of repeat business and given these people go for cheap deals who is to say they'll pay full price next time. That's one he'll of a gamble and one hell of a long time to have any hope of recovering your losses.
I take whatvJason Lawal says with a pinch of salt, he's the master of embellishment, that's a posh word for bs

Why the personal attacks Simon?  I use my real name , I have never personally attacked you or you character , and never typed anything on here that I would not say to a persons face , I can back up what I say on here with real  life results.   I hope to meet you one day , and see if you are as wise with words face to face ( though I suspect not .)    If you do not like the way I do things you are entitled to say , you are not entitled to make up opinion on what I have or have not done when you have never looked at my business or indeed met me.

[Simon Gerrard]

Jason,
You have never attacked me personally? Not long ago you said you had served one of my customers and that I had walked out of the job and was rude and arrogant. When I challenged you about it, as usual you wouldn't give any details, not even the customers name and town, because you merely wanted to besmirch my name with a cheap shot. That's personal.
It is your constant quoting of figure that makes me take anything you say in that regard with a 'pinch of salt' because they are merely figures you could have invented in order impress, for all we know. If you were being genuine you would be a lot more forthcoming on detail, 'how to make money out of groupon,' for instance. To do that you don't need figures and instead reveal your strategies which would be a lot more believable  and I dare say helpful to anyone else considering groupon.

Simon

[Jamie Pearson]

I think this thread is going off topic in the wrong direction.

I am going to lock it before this gets silly.